


The Hunt for Fen'Harel

by sariloire



Series: Ashae Lavellan (non-canon AUs) [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Rating May Change, also more characters and relationships will be added later on, okay it will change later on for sure, so nothing gets spoiled yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 13:56:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5336570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariloire/pseuds/sariloire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashae Lavellan was raised hearing stories about Fen’Harel, the trickster Elvhen god. To learn more of her ancestors, she joins the University of Orlais, where a group of scholars are trying to prove that the legends of Fen’Harel are true. After joining the group, she meets a scholar named Solas, and together they begin the hunt for Fen’Harel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fen'Harel ma ghilana

**Author's Note:**

> ‘Fen'Harel ma ghilana’ - ‘ “Dread Wolf guides you” Indicates someone being mislead/making bad life choices’ from the Dragon Age wiki.
> 
> This is kinda AU. It basically follows the same timeline and same setting as Inquisition, but it's different. Right now there's no breach, no conclave (yet).

It had been a year since he awoke.

In that year he had travelled. Traversed Thedas far and wide, learning what he could. Seeing what had changed.

Seeing the destruction that he, in his pride, had wrought.

It was different. So very different than he could have imagined. So wrong, nothing had turned out as he had wished it. And he, the only one who could right the wrongs he had done in the past, was now demonized by the last remnants of the people he had tried to save.

_Fen'Harel. The Dread Wolf._

The name he had worn as a badge of honour. It was feared now, a name spoken in fright, or even in anger as a wish of harm against the recipient.

Solas walked through the gates of Val Royeaux, wiping his brow as he looked up at the tall buildings. He had decided as soon as he awoke that his best course of action would be to find information, and the university in Val Royeaux had proved to be invaluable. He hoped it would continue to be as such.  


* * *

  
“Are you sure about this, da'len?”

Ashae Lavellan straightened up, a tunic folded in her hands as she was about to pack it away in her travelling bag. Turning her head as she straightened, she saw the Keeper of Clan Lavellan standing in the entryway of her tent. Keeper Deshanna looked tired, her grey eyes lined with years of working to keep the clan safe, her hair long ago turned white. Ashae felt a pang of guilt at the sight of the woman who had raised her, who had probably thought that her own duties would soon be over once the mantle of Keeper was passed to Ashae.

“Yes, Hahren. It has all been arranged.” Ashae put the tunic down, as the Keeper motioned for her to follow her outside the tent. She felt into step aside the Keeper, as they began walking their familiar path on the outskirts of the village. “I have arranged travel to Val Royeaux with a hunting party, and the University of Orlais has accepted my request to study with them.”

“I do not wish for you to live among the humans, da'len.” Keeper Deshanna looked ahead as they walked, her mouth set in a thin line with her eyebrows furrowed. “I did not argue when you visited the cities to purchase books, or to visit shops, but you are now speaking of leaving us-”

“It won’t be forever, Keeper. I am simply joining a research group for the present.” Ashae turned her head, trying to catch the keeper’s gaze, but was unsuccessful as the older woman continued to look ahead. “Their study may help the advancement of the Elven people. They’ve found ancient texts, and if studied, they might-”

“You have told me what you are to be studying, Ashae. And I believe you are entertaining mysteries that are better left unsolved. You are seeking out knowledge that was not meant for us to learn. The gods themselves were destroyed by Fen'Harel, and you wish to learn about him as if he was a common elf.”

“I believe that by learning more of Fen'Harel, and the truths behind the legends we are taught, that we may-”

“I cannot give you my blessing.” The Keeper stopped, moving to stand in front of Ashae. “If you wish you leave, you may do so, and I will begin training Liala as my First.”

Ashae felt her mouth drop open slightly, and her heart sank with the anger on her Keeper’s face. “Keeper, please, I’m just trying to help our people.”

“Our people have nothing to gain by learning of the Dread Wolf. He is to be feared, not studied.” Keeper Deshanna shook her head. “And certainly not at the side of  _shems_ and other elves that have abandoned their clans.”

“I wish to learn. I wish to study. I want to know what happened to our ancestors, and to the ancient Elvhen gods. We have forgotten so much since the fall of Arlathan, Hahren.” Ashae crossed her arms, inclining her head to the woman standing in front of her. “I know I can help bring some of it back to us, if I only have the chance. And the University is giving me that chance.” She could hear the plea in her own voice, as she tried so hard to make the Keeper understand why she was leaving, what she was hoping to accomplish.

This argument was one of many they had had over the last ten years, since the first time Ashae had sneaked away from the clan when they were camped near Starkhaven, so she could buy books. She had been young back then, only seventeen, but she had always possessed a desire for knowledge, and to learn more than the Dalish legends could tell her. And the Keeper had always warned her of the danger she was putting herself in.

“I hope you are right, but I fear that only harm will come of this decision you are making, Ashae. Fen'Harel ma ghilana.”  


* * *

  
The next morning, Ashae rose early. Her bags were packed, she was ready to go when one of the hunters stopped at her tent to tell her they were ready to go.

She left her tent and had made it to the edge of the encampment when Keeper Deshanna’s voice sounded from behind her. “I wish you well, Ashae. I raised you as my own, and I love you dearly, da'len. Dareth shiral.”

“Ir abelas, hahren.” Ashae’s voice was strained, she was fighting back the tears that were trying to overwhelm her.

“May the Dread Wolf never catch your scent, da'len.” Ashae heard the words spoken quietly behind her, and when she turned her head, the woman was gone. Lifting her head as she walked away from the camp, she wouldn’t let the tears fall that burned her eyes.

She was going against what she had been taught for the last twenty-seven years. Going against all the hopes and plans that the clan had for her. But as she stepped out of the woods, spotting the hunting party waiting ahead, Ashae couldn’t deny the feeling that her heart was soaring. After years of hoping and waiting, she was going to study with scholars at the University of Orlais. She was going to learn things that even the Dalish had forgotten.

For the first time in her life, she felt free.


	2. Nothing, and no one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ashae Lavellan was raised hearing stories about Fen’Harel, the trickster Elvhen god. To learn more of her ancestors, she joins the University of Orlais, where a group of scholars are trying to prove that the legends of Fen’Harel are true. After joining the group, she meets a scholar named Solas, and together they begin the hunt for Fen’Harel.

Ashae walked through the gates of Val Royeaux, having bid farewell to the hunting party a few miles away from the city. Her bag, full of the few possessions that she had brought with her, was slung over her shoulder. Her bare feet were wrapped in bandages and hurting from the journey, and she could feel the heat on her face from where her pale skin had been burnt by the sun.

All in all, she was exhausted. Her time in the clan had been full of studying and learning. She had mastered ice magic, to defend herself if the need had ever arisen, but hadn’t put in the years of physical training that caused most elves to be quick on their feet and able to walk for miles at a time without stopping. She was tired, and sweaty, and she wanted more than anything to find a river to bathe in.

Looking around her, Ashae pulled her hood up over her head as she saw finely-dressed shoppers glancing her way. The guards from the cities she visited always differed on their opinions of Dalish elves wandering the city. Some paid her no mind, others questioned her. Once she had been chased by Templars who were set on dragging her away to a circle after they had saw her use magic to escape from city guards.

Her correspondence at the University of Orlais had assured her that she was most welcome, and that her presence would not be a problem. They claimed to have other elves attending the university, agreeing with what she had heard from snatches of conversations she had caught when visiting other cities. But a lifetime of the shape of her ears and the marks on her face causing her to be treated as subservient or dangerous had caused her to be suspicious. She would believe the welcome when she received it, and no matter how warm the welcome, Ashae knew she would be on guard for a long time.

Walking through the crowd, keeping her head as low as she could while still watching where she was walking, Ashae spotted bare feet wrapped in green, and she looked up. Her gaze fell on a man, well over a head taller than her, standing in the street she had just began walking down. His head was bare, with neither hood nor hair, and she saw the sharp point to his ears from the place she stood, several feet away.

He was tall, much taller than the elves she was used to seeing. His back was straight as he stood there, his hands clasped behind his back, looking up at the sky. She watched him for a moment, wondering if it would be rude to ask him what clan he was from, when he turned and looked over his shoulder their eyes meeting. She took in his bare face first, even as her green eyes couldn’t look away from his blue. She watched his gaze flicker to the vallaslin covering her own face, before returning to her eyes.

He nodded at her, a polite smile turning his lips slightly upwards, before turning and walking the way she had been headed before she had caught sight of him. Not wanting the man to think she was following him, Ashae waited a few moments before setting off down the same road.

 

* * *

  
Solas stared at the woman standing across the street. He had felt eyes on his back, and expected to see a guard when he turned. Instead it was a short, thin elf, with pale blonde hair and bright green eyes. The hood hid her ears well, but he saw their tips causing slight bulges in the material on either side of her head. He watched her eyes search his face, no doubt looking for a trace of blood writing similar to her own, which trailed in a pale blue, twisting itself around her eyes and across her lips, all the way down past her chin and neck to where her cloak was fastened. When she scanned his face for the vallaslin and didn’t find any, her eyes turned back to his.

He smiled at her, and nodded a silent greeting. Even after a year of seeing Dalish in Thedas with vallaslin, it never ceased to make his heart clench for a moment. The Evanuris had left their mark on the world, quite literally, even if the Dalish didn’t remember that the Evanuris were the cause for the markings.

Shaking himself from his thoughts, he turned from the smaller elf and continued walking along his path. He couldn’t stop from glancing at the sky every time he went outside for fresh air, and today was no different. Every day he waited, listening.

Wondering if it was the day that Corypheus would use the orb Solas had given him.

After waking from his slumber, Solas has hoped to unlock the orb himself. But millennia spent in uthenera had left him weak, weaker than he had ever been in his life, and having the orb given to Corypheus was the only hope he had to retrieve its power. The orb would unlock, the magister would die, and Solas would be able to enter the fade and bring down the Veil, restoring at least a few of the wrongs he had done to the world.

But he couldn’t rush the event, as much as he wished it to happen. His agents, of whom he had little contact with at this point, all stated that Corypheus was preparing to use the orb at the right moment. Solas simply wished he knew when that time was going to be.

He sighed, his gaze turning to the buildings around him. He didn’t care much for this city, but it was in an excellent location for hearing news and stories about the things that were happening across Thedas.

Especially when it came to the group at the University of Orlais, those who called themselves scholars or researchers. He felt a dry chuckle in his throat as he thought of the group that was waiting for him to return from the journey he had just made. They were hoping he would bring back more news, more information.

More stories of Fen’Harel.

He didn’t know exactly how it had happened, but sometime in the last couple of months, a group of researchers at the university had declared their intent on finding out more about the ancient elven stories of Fen’Harel. They had found a few ancient texts that had sparked their interest, and had since found a few trinkets here and there in travels that mentioned the Dread Wolf. And the group had become obsessed with uncovering more secrets of the ‘ancient elven trickster’, or so they called him.

Hearing of the group had, of course, drawn Solas’ interest. And since he was already utilizing the university’s many books and resources, he had found it quite easy to receive permission to sit in on the sessions that the group of researchers had, in which they stated theories and legends about the ancient god that frightened the Dalish.

Solas hadn’t planned on contributing, but on one particular occasion he had brought up an experience he saw in the Fade, where mere mention of the Dread Wolf coming to exact judgement on a wrongdoer had caused a wave of terror and almost started a small war between two Dalish clans. He was trying to show the group that the legends had turned to fear used to control people but the group, which comprised of several humans and a few Dalish and city elves, had turned their attentions to him at that point, and asked him questions far into the night.

He was careful with what they told him, but he found that if he let just the right useless information slip, he could get back information that was very useful to his cause.

It was how he had learned a decent amount of knowledge about the Dalish, things he hadn’t seen in the Fade, and things that had been twisted by the memories of the spirits lingering at the old Dalish encampments he had dreamed in. The group was dedicated, and they were a resource he had come to depend on.

And just lately he had overheard one of the Dalish researchers call him, ironically, the  _Fen’Harel Expert_.

That was when Solas had decided he needed a break to travel and ‘look for more information on the ancient elven gods’.

His time at the university was going to be short lived. Once Corypheus unlocked the orb, Solas knew his true purpose would begin, and the world would be thrown into utter chaos as he brought back the Evanuris from their entrapment.

His guilt was ever-present, even more so when he looked at the elves in the group, or even thought of the elf he had just shared a passing moment with in the street.

But he knew what must be done.

Nothing could turn him away from his path. No one would stop him from righting the wrongs he had committed so very long ago.

Nothing, and no one.  


* * *

  
“If you’d like, we’ll stop in and introduce you to your future colleagues, and then you can retire to your room. I’m sure you’re tired from your trip.”

The man at her side, who had just introduced himself as Treal Haworth, walked Ashae through the halls of the University of Orlais, pointing out interesting sights and facts that she drank in as if they were life-giving water.

She had never seen so many sights and luxurious wonders, from the gold and marble lining the walls to the shelves of books reaching up to the ceiling. The hardest thing at that moment was containing her excitement, as she was trying her best to not appear as an overly eager child to the much older man.

Professor Haworth had been incredibly gracious in Ashae’s eyes, welcoming her to the university as soon as she found his office. Some people in the hallway had given her cold stares as she removed her hood, leaving her with a foreboding feeling of being unwelcome, but the professor was nothing but kind and jovial.

His area of interest was Elven Lore, and Ashae felt giddy with anticipation over the things she hoped she would be able to learn from him.

He knocked on a door that had a frosted glass window inlaid, through which Ashae could see shadows moving around in the room. A voice called for them to enter, and Professor Haworth opened the door, motioning for Ashae to step through as he held it open.

Not willing to show her nerves or excitement, Ashae lifted her head proudly as she walked in, and looked from face to face. After passing over two humans, a Dalish elf, and a city elf, she moved to the next one standing around the table, and stopped.

A familiar bald head and bare face, staring back at her with slightly widened blue eyes.

_‘Oh no, he’s really going to think I followed him here now.’_

“Everyone, this is the newest member of our group, the one I’ve been talking about for the last few weeks. Ashae, coming to us from Clan Lavellan.” Professor Haworth motioned to her, pulling her attention from the blue eyes that had now taken on a curious expression as he had held her gaze. “Ashae, these are a few of the people you’ll be working with. Edsel, Piper, Yeriel, Larana, and Solas.” As he spoke, he motioned in turn to the human male, human female, Dalish male, city elf female, and the tall elf she had ‘met’ in the street.

They all, in turn, greeted her kindly. The humans reaching out to shake her hand, and the elves following their lead. Solas, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly, took her hand in his to shake it.

“This is an unexpected pleasure.” He shook her hand, and Ashae returned his smile with one of her own. “I look forward to getting to know you better, Lavellan.”

Minutes later, the professor excused them from the office and led her to her room, giving her a key along with directions to the chambers they would all be dining in that night.

Ashae walked through the door and found a bath, complete with steaming water, waiting for her in an alcove in the room. A noise of happiness left her throat as she locked the door behind her, dropping her bag to the floor, and she began to strip off her clothes that were in need of washing after the long journey.

As she sank into the bath, she thought of the words that Keeper Deshanna had spoken to her before she had left the clan, her prediction that harm would follow Ashae to Val Royeaux.

And in that moment, nothing could have seemed further from the truth.

 


End file.
